Sankalp organized 12 blood donation camps in Sept 2015 collecting 772 units of blood. Syniverse: 3rd camp was organized in Syniverse on 2nd Sept. The company promoted the event very well and arranged fruits for the donors. We saw 87 people turning up for the event with a collection of 75 units of blood. Schnieder Electric: Schnieder Electric organized a camp with Sankalp for the first time at their Bidarahalli location. For publicity, all the LCD screens in company were used.
1st October is celebrated as National Voluntary Blood Donor’s Day in India to mark the birthday of Dr J G Jolly who is believed to have spearheaded the movement to promote Voluntary Blood Donation in the country. Several voluntary organizations across the country marked the day with blood donation drives and other celebrations including felicitation of regular donors. A few blood banks and hospitals organized CMEs. Sankalp too could have organized an event and marked the special day. Instead we chose to do something different.
What do we do as a voluntary organisation when we confront with a problem that affects the donors and the interest of voluntary blood donation as a whole? There are choices. There is the choice to create awareness about the problem and hope that someone will take notice and solve it. The other option is to petition the Government and other stakeholders to try and take the problem up and find answers. Then there is the approach that we took.
Due to a patriotic fervour gripping the city around Independence day the number of blood donation drives in were far too many. At such times, Sankalp takes a stand not to organise too many drives. This ensures a balanced supply of blood without overloading and leading to possible wastage. Hence in the month of August, the team organised only 7 blood donation drives leading to a collection of 603 units of blood. The rate of adverse events was quite high compared to other months in the year and was about 4%.
Counselling donors is an important and integral part of blood banking. Counsellors have various roles to play in the blood banking setup. In voluntary blood donation drives, a counsellor plays the role of speaking to the donor before blood donation where he/she encourages the donor to donate and gets an assurance that required pre donation criteria is met. Any questions/concerns related to blood donation (apart from medical issues which shall be addressed by the doctor), should also to be answered by the counsellor.
The year began with merger of Project Disha and Emergency Wing, the two teams inclined towards making blood accessible and available to the needy. It was felt that it would be logistically easier if the two, otherwise separately perceived teams, worked in cohesion.
The Helpline Situation
The helpline is believed to be critical to Sankalp’s progress as an organisation. Running the helpline without problems means that the basic purpose of the organisation gets fulfilled – helping people with blood. To this extent the team did perform.
